WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:00.719 Well, good morning. 00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:03.680 We are studying our way through the book of Ephesians. 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:05.839 We are toward the end of chapter four. 00:00:05.919 --> 00:00:08.240 Here's what we've been saying if you haven't been with us. 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:15.039 The main point of Ephesians is this: what God has done for us in Christ and how we should live in light of it. 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:16.719 It's the main port of the entire book. 00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:22.640 What God has done for us in Christ, and we see that in chapters one through three, and how we should live in light of it. 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:24.320 That's chapters four through six. 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:30.559 So even the structure of Ephesians is Paul teaching us something because we've been saying this. 00:00:30.719 --> 00:00:39.280 We can only live out chapters four through six, our godly behaviors, who we should be, how we should live through chapters one through three. 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:44.479 We worded it this way: our walk with Jesus is not for God's love. 00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:47.600 Our walk with Jesus is from God's love. 00:00:47.920 --> 00:01:13.760 That distinction can really help you from being a self-righteous, judgmental, arrogant, weary Christian, or perhaps in despair and condemned because you aren't pulling it off, weary Christian, to a Christian that's living from God's love, already forgiven in Jesus, already righteous in Jesus, already valuable in Jesus. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:19.680 And out of that wellspring is the life of walking with God. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.400 Ephesians 4, 17 through 19. 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:29.599 Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, and the futility of their minds. 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:40.560 So he's saying, those who don't know Jesus, then verse 18, they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them. 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:41.519 Why? 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:44.319 Due to their hardness of heart. 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:52.640 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:58.079 Point number one is this our godly behaviors flow from an inner identity in Jesus. 00:01:58.319 --> 00:02:03.200 Paul is saying, you used to be one way, one person, one identity. 00:02:03.359 --> 00:02:06.640 You now have a new source for your identity. 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.960 Your heart is not hard to God anymore. 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:13.759 So don't live in darkness anymore. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:15.280 There is a better way. 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:17.599 Paul's saying there's a better way. 00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:23.120 Seven years ago, we took our three girls to Disney World for the first time. 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:26.400 So seven years ago, here's a picture of the three girls there in Disney World. 00:02:26.479 --> 00:02:33.759 What you don't see is Christy and I behind the camera melting because it was already 117 degrees in Disney World as it always is. 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:37.360 And I'm not a Disney guy because it's hot and I don't like hot. 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:39.439 There's lines, I don't like lines. 00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:41.360 And I don't want to be hot in a line. 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:45.520 That's the worst scenario, which is what you primarily do at Disney World. 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:50.400 So I'm just not a Disney guy, but like we're there because we're gonna do the family thing, and so we're gonna do that. 00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:58.400 It's our first time, and so we kind of go in and we mosey this way and that way, we do some rides over here, and then we kind of do that over there. 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:05.520 I went up to one ride, this one particular ride, and I promise you I thought, I thought this was a 35-minute line. 00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:08.479 I thought maybe 40, maybe 40 minutes tops. 00:03:09.039 --> 00:03:13.199 And I go up and I look at the little sign, you know, that they put the little signs out. 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:15.360 It said three and a half hours. 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:17.280 And I'm like, you're in line. 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:18.800 Like you made this decision. 00:03:18.879 --> 00:03:21.840 You thought to yourself, like you thought to yourself, I'll get in this line. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:22.960 I will wait three. 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:26.719 I could be on the other side of the country in three and a half hours. 00:03:26.879 --> 00:03:29.599 I could build a ride in three and a half hours. 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:33.199 There are so many things I could do in three and a half hours. 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:35.360 Uh, so we had a great day at Disney World. 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:36.560 That's what I wanted to say. 00:03:36.719 --> 00:03:37.280 Amazing. 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:40.159 It was an amazing day at Disney World. 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:44.159 Now, a few years later, we went to Disney again because we had not had enough. 00:03:44.319 --> 00:03:49.120 And Christy, this time Christy reached out to a friend that's a Disney Super fan. 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:53.520 Like she's in the Disney Vacation Club, she has the special app. 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:55.680 Some of you have the special app. 00:03:55.840 --> 00:03:57.120 You y'all know stuff. 00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:59.360 You know stuff, the rest of us don't know. 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:00.960 We're in ignorance, you're not. 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:05.039 She begins to explain to us how to get in early. 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:07.680 And she's, oh, you don't start at the front of the park. 00:04:07.759 --> 00:04:09.199 Don't just mosey around. 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:12.560 Like when you go in, you gotta walk to the back and you gotta walk fast. 00:04:12.639 --> 00:04:16.639 And you get back there because you can chip off four rides before anybody knows what's going on. 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:23.839 And you work your way from the back to the front, and you're working your fast passes and your reserve and stuff, and she explained the whole system. 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:29.199 There's a system to this madness, is what she actually charted out our entire day. 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:31.600 And we went from darkness to light that day. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:32.879 We really did. 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:35.120 And our day was so much better. 00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:36.959 We had a great day. 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:39.360 We were ignorant in the darkness. 00:04:39.519 --> 00:04:41.120 We don't know how this works. 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:42.560 We don't know how this works. 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:45.680 Yeah, I'll just get in a three and a half hour line and think that's normal. 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:47.839 Like we don't know, we just don't know how this works. 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:51.680 To somebody explaining to us, like, oh, here's how it works. 00:04:51.839 --> 00:04:53.680 And all of a sudden, we're not ignorant. 00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:57.519 All of a sudden, our our experience doesn't feel like futility, right? 00:04:57.680 --> 00:04:58.720 Everything changed. 00:04:58.879 --> 00:05:00.480 Here's the reasoning of these verses. 00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:11.519 Paul says, the power of ignorance, that you don't know how something works, you don't know how life works, is error and corruption. 00:05:11.839 --> 00:05:15.120 And he explains it this way darkened understanding. 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:20.000 So you live apart from God, and then there's a loss of self-control. 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:21.199 Right? 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:26.560 When you don't understand life, you do some crazy stuff. 00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:31.519 I mean, even this week, some people told me some stuff that's happened in our town and community the last few weeks. 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:35.680 And I'm like, they they let what happen at their house? 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.959 They they they did what with their children? 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:47.920 They what why would like, oh, they're they're ignorant, they're living apart from God, and so there's a loss of self-control. 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:51.839 Yet, yet, there's a better way. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:53.839 There's a different way, there's a new way. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:59.040 And Paul says, there's a power of truth when light comes into darkness. 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:00.160 How does life work? 00:06:00.319 --> 00:06:00.959 What is true? 00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:03.199 What is good, what is noble, what is right? 00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:07.600 And there is liberation and refinement for us. 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:13.680 In verse 19, it says, those in darkness have given themselves over to sensualities. 00:06:13.839 --> 00:06:19.120 This is the giving yourself over to things and experiences that please your senses. 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:22.879 So you become enslaved to the very things that please you. 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:27.199 This pleases me, I'm gonna keep partaking in it, but yet I need to keep having more of this. 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:40.000 An affair, greed, gossip, backbiting, lust, pornography, all of these are like bite-sized five-minute sensualities. 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:43.439 Little, little bite-sized sensations. 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:46.000 And then it's gone. 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:49.279 And then you need another bite size, and it's gone, and you need another bite sign. 00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:54.560 And all that's left is, as we all know, shame and destruction. 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:57.600 And Paul says, that's the old way. 00:06:58.079 --> 00:07:06.480 Like you can begin to learn how your heart and how your mind, how life works, and you don't have to live that way anymore. 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:11.439 I read this this week in my devotions by priest Henry Nowen. 00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:26.000 You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure, but you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question. 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:31.040 Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events or in guilt or shame. 00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:37.279 All that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built. 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:44.160 So now and rightly describes the human experience, but even the human experience as a Christian. 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:51.680 I want to read it again because I think I read it to you that time, but I want to read it again and you let it read you. 00:07:51.839 --> 00:07:52.079 Right? 00:07:52.160 --> 00:07:55.439 There's a difference between reading something and letting something read you. 00:07:55.759 --> 00:07:59.199 So just sort of ponder this as I read it. 00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:11.279 You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure. 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:17.040 But you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:22.319 Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events or in guilt or in shame. 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:35.840 Okay, so now and tells us exactly what happens, but he also reminds us who we are, and here's where he says it all of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built. 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:47.600 So there's good news in there, and the good news is this you can build a house, your heart and your mind, on a rock that actually is stable. 00:08:47.919 --> 00:08:50.559 That's not just bite-sized sensations. 00:08:51.919 --> 00:08:53.440 Verse 20. 00:08:54.080 --> 00:08:57.840 And here's where Paul says, but that's not the way you learned Christ. 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:19.919 Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:26.480 Those words learn, heard, taught, they all evoke an image of school. 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:29.679 You're in a process of being educated, you're growing. 00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:30.559 That's point number two. 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:34.240 Jesus teaches us from the inside out. 00:09:34.879 --> 00:09:37.759 Heart change leads to life change. 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:47.679 But Paul won't let us move on to verse 25, which begins the list of how we should live without giving us these verses 20 or through 24. 00:09:48.159 --> 00:09:53.360 Because we live, verse 25 onward, through who we are in Jesus. 00:09:53.679 --> 00:09:55.440 That's what we said to begin the sermon. 00:09:55.519 --> 00:10:05.279 I'll say it again, and I'll say it this way: Christianity is receiving and being with Jesus before it is doing and serving for Jesus. 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:14.960 Now, Christianity is serving and doing for Jesus, but it is that through receiving and being with Jesus. 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:19.279 And so when you're doing great, you're not self-righteous and judgmental to others. 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:24.480 And when you're not doing great or you fail, you're also not crushed in despair. 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:28.720 Because Jesus is your forgiveness, and he is your righteousness. 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:37.759 And your identity with God and God's delight in you is not based in your performance, but in Jesus' performance for you, so you can repent and begin again. 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:45.120 Being a Christian is this laying aside of our old tattered way of life and then being clothed. 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:48.080 That's the image Paul's, being clothed in a new way of life. 00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:49.519 There's a new way. 00:10:50.399 --> 00:10:52.320 But it's not just a new to-do list. 00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:53.600 You're actually a new creation. 00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:58.399 You're learning a new way to live out this identity that you have now. 00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:02.159 Forgive me, I know I told this story last year. 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:08.399 We're going through the book of Colossians, because in Colossians, Paul speaks about the same thing, uses the same image. 00:11:08.639 --> 00:11:15.440 Old clothes, new clothes, old way of life, new way of life, coming from the new identity that we have in Jesus. 00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:28.000 And for me, the first time Colossians was making sense, or even this imagery of old clothes and new clothes, old way of life, new way of life, this made sense to me when I was in college, went on a mission trip to Ghana, Africa. 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:33.679 The first day I walked into this village with my teammate, a pastor from about an hour away town. 00:11:33.759 --> 00:11:40.639 So we're like an hour outside of a city, and then another hour outside that town to make it into this village that didn't have a Christian church. 00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:44.399 So this pastor that lived an hour away wanted to plant a church here. 00:11:44.639 --> 00:11:47.840 A white person hadn't even been in this village in years and years. 00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:50.639 The children have never seen a white person. 00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:53.279 Imagine if a purple person shows up this morning. 00:11:53.440 --> 00:11:54.720 Imagine what our children would do. 00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:59.679 Our children would just walk around looking at this purple person, want to touch their skin, right? 00:11:59.759 --> 00:12:00.720 Like that's what would happen. 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:03.919 That's exactly what happened to us as we walk through these village streets. 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:10.399 We're meeting with people, seeing who's interested and want to hear about the gospel, and then let's start a church, let's start a small group. 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:16.879 We're walking through, children, just a hundred children, just following behind the whole entire day. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:24.159 Every time I'd sit down, because it was hot as Disney World there, it was about 117 degrees. 00:12:24.399 --> 00:12:26.480 Every time I would sit down, I would look over the side. 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:30.559 There was this one little girl, and she had tattered clothes on. 00:12:33.679 --> 00:12:35.759 And every time I looked at her, she would run off. 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:40.879 And I'd think to myself, what a loving missionary I'm being, scaring the children. 00:12:41.679 --> 00:12:43.120 Scaring the children away. 00:12:43.279 --> 00:12:47.759 And then toward the in the evening, we were sitting down and we're gonna have like an event. 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:52.799 And I sat down, I took this picture because she came back and she she looked different. 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:56.960 She had she had gone home, I don't know where she, but she found this dress. 00:12:57.200 --> 00:13:01.840 I'm imagining it's her only dress she had based on the clothes that she had on before. 00:13:03.039 --> 00:13:09.600 And for me, Colossians is imagery of old life and new life, battered clothes and new clothes started to make sense. 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:12.879 The only difference here is that she went off on her own. 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:17.200 And in the gospel, God says, I love you as you are, not as you should be. 00:13:17.279 --> 00:13:24.639 So I'm actually with you in the process of you putting on new clothes, better clothes. 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:28.399 Put on the better way of life. 00:13:30.080 --> 00:13:35.279 There's verse 23 is wedged in this old clothes, new clothes language. 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:40.480 And it says that our minds need to be renewed, verse 23. 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:42.159 What does that mean? 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:43.600 Like we say that in church all the time. 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:44.720 Like the renewing of our mind. 00:13:44.799 --> 00:13:45.919 Right, the renewing of our mind. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:47.360 We always use that phrase, the renewing of our mind. 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:48.320 Like, what does that mean? 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:50.320 The commentary explained it this way. 00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:57.279 In addition to the decisive rejection of the old and assumption of the new implicit in conversion. 00:13:57.360 --> 00:14:05.279 So being like, all right, you're a Christian, so implicit in that is that a new way of life is going to play out in your life. 00:14:05.600 --> 00:14:10.960 Is a daily, indeed, a continuous inward renewal of our outlook is involved in being a Christian. 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:18.559 If heathen degradation is due to the futility of their minds, then Christian righteousness depends on the constant renewing of our minds. 00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:20.879 And I read that and I thought to myself, that's a lot of words. 00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:21.759 That's actually what I thought. 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:24.240 I was like, still a lot of words, I still need a little help. 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:25.120 And so R.C. 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.279 Sproul helped me make sense of that. 00:14:27.440 --> 00:14:30.320 And here's how he explains this idea of the renewing of the mind. 00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:40.320 The renewing of the mind is not simply acquiring more information, it is a transformation in the way we reason. 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:46.240 What we value and what we love. 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:53.759 The spirit changes the very faculty by which we understand the world. 00:14:55.200 --> 00:15:03.919 The very way you reason through a scenario, a situation, a problem, what you value, what you love. 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:09.200 The spirit changes the very faculty by which we understand the world. 00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:17.039 The question is, is are we letting and are we open to the Spirit doing that work in us? 00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:28.879 Or are we open to the Holy Spirit changing our hearts, desires, and values, what we love and how we reason through something? 00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:32.960 Now we're ready for verse 25. 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:37.120 Now we're ready for the list of who we should be, how should we live? 00:15:37.519 --> 00:15:47.440 And that's why Paul says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:49.200 Be angry and do not sin. 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:52.879 Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. 00:15:53.039 --> 00:16:01.919 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:12.480 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:17.440 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:24.240 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:26.399 And then Paul sums it up. 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:28.639 Be kind to one another. 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:34.960 Be tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. 00:16:37.039 --> 00:16:53.039 If I could just sum it up, it would be something like we don't have to trash talk each other or anybody to feel important because we're already important to God and Jesus. 00:16:53.360 --> 00:17:02.000 If your importance is already settled, imagine how free that makes you when you're in conversations with people. 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:06.000 That you don't need their acceptance or affirmation. 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:10.480 You don't even need their agreement with your opinion on this person or this thing. 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:12.160 You are really set free. 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:20.960 If you're already important because of your identity with God through Jesus, you are set free. 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:25.200 To be kind, to be truthful, to be gracious. 00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:32.240 Point number three is this Jesus is and shows us a new way of life. 00:17:32.480 --> 00:17:35.920 Truthful, self-giving, grace-speaking, and tenderhearted. 00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:37.680 Jesus is this for us. 00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:39.839 We won't ever live that out perfectly. 00:17:40.079 --> 00:17:41.359 Jesus is that for us. 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:50.799 All the ways we failed, Jesus was that, lived the righteousness for us, which is given to us perfectly, and he shows us at the same time this new way of life. 00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:58.880 So all that lofty theological talk finds itself into the reality of our lives, which is relationships. 00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:06.720 As soon as Paul gets a chance to talk about how we should actually live, he talks about how we relate to each other. 00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:16.960 The first thing he goes to when he talks about godly behavior is how we treat each other, how we speak about each other, how we speak to each other. 00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:20.640 The commentary says this about these verses. 00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:28.559 Holiness is not a mystical condition experienced in relation to God, but in isolation from human beings. 00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:34.240 You cannot be good in a vacuum, but only in the real world of people. 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:37.599 And this is all good. 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:41.440 Like this verse 25 on, this is all a good guide. 00:18:41.519 --> 00:18:56.640 But if all you have is verse 25 on without verses 20 to 24, or if all you have is chapters 4 through 6, without chapters 1 through 3, the list without Jesus, we're doomed. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:03.359 A faith-to-do list or performance without Jesus will wear you out. 00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:08.880 Because none of us are going to live verses 25 through 32 perfectly. 00:19:09.359 --> 00:19:17.200 In fact, even when I read it, some of you are like, oof, ooh, like boy, getting hit here, getting punched in the mouth by the Bible, right? 00:19:17.279 --> 00:19:21.920 Like, I mean, some of you felt that you're like, you have no idea what I was saying about you earlier. 00:19:22.079 --> 00:19:23.440 Like, you don't even know. 00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:27.599 We're just not going to live it perfectly. 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:31.519 And in all those ways, Jesus lived it perfectly for us. 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:35.359 That's why we're not just forgiven, but we're actually righteous in Jesus. 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:39.680 This week I was doing some research for my dissertation. 00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:42.319 I'm at the toward the end of my doctorate process. 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:50.880 And so in that, I'm interviewing a whole bunch of senior pastors on contemplative pace and practice of pastors and church staffs and church and stuff like that. 00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:52.640 It's kind of think a pastor likes to study. 00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:59.200 So I'm interviewing a senior pastor from Naples, Florida, a big, prestigious, very impressive church. 00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:02.960 Even when we got on the Zoom call, I'm like, that is an unbelievably impressive bookcase. 00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:05.519 There's like mahogany, leather-bound books. 00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:09.359 I was like, this is a very impressive Zoom call. 00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:10.880 And it's an impressive church. 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:12.160 He's an impressive guy. 00:20:12.319 --> 00:20:13.599 He was about 50 years old. 00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:14.799 He was an achiever. 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:16.000 He is an achiever. 00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:20.240 I mean, he has an engine in him that can get stuff done. 00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:21.440 Some of you know I'm talking about. 00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:22.319 You have that engine. 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:25.359 You wake up and the engine's already cranking, you're like, I'm ready to clear the plate. 00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:26.799 Give me stuff to do, right? 00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:28.559 And he can get stuff done. 00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:38.799 And what he said is the only way that each semester five is being a pastor now, it's 50 years old, is he takes one week each semester and he disappears. 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:49.759 He goes to a monastery in California for seven to ten days twice a year because his normal life and his normal way of being is just so overloaded. 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:52.240 I'm like, that's so interesting. 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:57.839 That's so interesting that that's the way that he's figured out how to even how to process and deal with who he is. 00:20:58.079 --> 00:21:16.559 So just at the end of the interview, I said, what would you as an achieving 50-year-old pastor say to your 30-year-old pressing, pushing, you know, performing self? 00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:26.880 And he just sort of paused and he said, I would just tell him that he's in love before he achieves anything. 00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:34.880 And as he said it, it's almost like he he heard it, like he heard himself say the thing. 00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:39.200 And then he like closes his eyes again and he said, Oh, he said, that's still what I need to hear. 00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:43.599 And then he said, Everything else changes from there. 00:21:44.720 --> 00:21:46.480 That's what Paul's doing in Ephesians. 00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:48.559 It's what Paul does over and over and over again. 00:21:48.799 --> 00:21:59.599 If we can believe that we are already loved fully in Jesus, how does that free you and how does that change how you're kind to? 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:06.240 Each other, how does that change how I speak about you behind your back or how I speak to you in front of your face? 00:22:06.640 --> 00:22:18.960 Well, if I'm set free from needing you to view me as important or me needing to push you down so I feel a little more important, if I'm free from all of that mess, imagine how I could be tender with you or kind toward you. 00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:24.799 You remember that movie Inside Out? 00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:26.319 You remember Riley, right? 00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:27.279 That's the animated movie. 00:22:27.440 --> 00:22:28.319 Some of you remember it? 00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:28.559 Yeah. 00:22:28.720 --> 00:22:31.119 Okay, so the emotions movies about the emotions. 00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:42.640 Anyways, Riley, the girl, she um in the movie, she moves from uh Minnesota, where she loved hockey, she had her friends, and her mom and dad and her moved to San Francisco, and it's like the end of her world. 00:22:42.799 --> 00:22:55.279 I think she's preteen, 12 or 13 years old, and it's the end of her world, and hockey's not working out, and she just wants to go home, and she has a horrible first day of school, and so she decides she is going to run, she's gonna run back to Minnesota. 00:22:55.680 --> 00:22:57.039 She's gonna run away from home. 00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:05.119 And so she packs her bag and she gets a bus ticket and she gets on the bus, she's gonna run home, and then she's on the bus and she realizes she can't do it. 00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:06.559 She just can't do it. 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:08.559 So she ends up back home. 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:11.039 Meanwhile, the parents are in disarray. 00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:12.960 Um, you know, where is their daughter? 00:23:13.119 --> 00:23:14.240 You know, she's ran away. 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:15.359 Is she gonna come back? 00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:16.319 Is she safe? 00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:19.759 And so she comes back home and she apologizes. 00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:28.160 And when she comes in the house, this picture of the scene, when she comes in the house, mom and dad and her, they they they embrace her and they just fall to the floor. 00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:29.759 And her mom says this. 00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:33.039 Her mom says, We love you no matter what. 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:33.839 That's the line. 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:35.440 We love you no matter what. 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:38.240 And it's her turning point in the movie. 00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:47.200 It's it's Riley's turning point, is knowing she's loved in her mess, knowing she's loved in her process. 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:54.079 It's the same thing the pastor in Naples was saying that he needs to be told that he's loved. 00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:57.200 Because if he knows that, everything else changes from there. 00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:00.000 It's what Ephesians 4 is teaching us. 00:24:00.319 --> 00:24:03.680 See, it's not just about new patterns or lists of how to live. 00:24:03.839 --> 00:24:04.480 Those are great. 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:08.480 We're gonna live those out, but we live them out through who we are in Jesus. 00:24:08.559 --> 00:24:11.519 It's about being loved in our darkness so that we'll know the light. 00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:13.599 So we even want the light. 00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:19.759 And we're gazing more on this Jesus as we say, show us how to live. 00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:20.480 Show me how to live. 00:24:20.559 --> 00:24:21.119 I want to live for you. 00:24:21.200 --> 00:24:21.680 Oh, I failed. 00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:22.640 Okay, I'm sorry. 00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:23.519 Help me again. 00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:24.240 Help me again. 00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:24.960 I want to live for you. 00:24:25.039 --> 00:24:25.839 I want to live like you. 00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:29.279 Show me this new way of life, this better way of life. 00:24:30.079 --> 00:24:34.559 And Jesus says to us, I love you as you are, not as you should be. 00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:36.000 None of us are as we should be. 00:24:36.079 --> 00:24:39.039 So I love you as you are, and I want to walk with you. 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:53.359 A few weeks ago, when I went on a retreat with a few Redeemer men, I was reading through the Valley of Vision prayer book, and this one particular few lines spoke to me that week. 00:24:54.079 --> 00:24:54.720 Here it is. 00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:58.240 I think it's my prayer for all of us this morning. 00:24:59.920 --> 00:25:03.440 Revive a deep spirituality in my heart. 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:07.279 Let me live near to the great shepherd. 00:25:08.640 --> 00:25:15.359 To hear his voice, to know its tones, to follow its call. 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:34.559 Heavenly Father, we come before you and confess when it comes to the condition of our heart, sensualities, when it comes to the condition of our heart of what we love and value, and when it comes to how we speak to each other, it is not always good. 00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:36.880 And for that we're sorry. 00:25:38.160 --> 00:25:43.119 Thank you that we are as forgiven as righteous as we've ever been. 00:25:43.359 --> 00:25:46.240 Thank you that we are as righteous as your son Jesus. 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:53.839 Thank you that you love us and delight in us and you are endeared to us just as you are in your son Jesus because of Jesus. 00:25:55.759 --> 00:26:03.359 Help us to rest all the more in that forgiveness and to discover this new way of life that this identity has. 00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:17.359 Where we are set free for a whole new way to reason, to think, to process, to value, to love, and a whole new way of speaking to and about each other. 00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:22.400 Give us more grace for each other, more truth, more kindness, and more tenderness. 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:24.000 In Jesus' name we pray. 00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:24.960 Amen.